Heavy Souls
by Thalius
Summary: Veta is definitely not a mom, but taking care of three traumatized teenagers sometimes makes her feel that way.


_Easy days will come_

 _when you rest your heavy soul_

 _oh, easy days will come_

 _when your hard living is done_

* * *

Veta wasn't fond of admitting when Osman turned out to be right, but—well, she'd been right about the nightmares.

Veteran homicide detectives didn't scare easily, but even Gao's most violent serial killers now seemed quaint in comparison to the brutal stock ONI was made of. Training on how to withstand various kinds of torture, escape from restraints designed to break bones, and kill without much more than her own fists was being drilled into her with detached efficiency by Section Three's best, most hardened DIs. Asking the question _when the hell will this come up?_ was almost invariably met with the answer: _don't worry, it will._

She thankfully hadn't encountered torture or any restraints that violated the UNSC's conventions of warfare credos, but the training for them had brought up parts of her personal history she had worked very hard to forget. She didn't need to let her mind conjure up what kinds of horrors Osman was ready to place her Ferret team in; she only needed to remember.

Which she was doing. A lot. So sleep wasn't really an option for her right now. Lying in her dark, cramped quarters with only a bit of bulkhead to separate her from the cold vacuum of space did not help in the slightest, so she used the opportunity to do some paperwork and review her team's progress reports. Coincidentally, ONI also offered training on how to combat sleep deprivation, which she found herself calling upon more and more often lately.

Veta thumbed through her Ferret's assessments, leaning back in one of the many sofas scattered around the rec room of the orbital training station they were docked on. Their combat reports were stellar, to no one's surprise, but the DIs always found suggestions for improvement, which they penned in the footnotes of the reports.

 _Ash: competitive, but too eager to impress._

 _Olivia: vulnerable to extended emotional manipulation._

 _Mark: needs to re-orient focus on objectives._

She snorted at the last one. What went unsaid was _focuses too much on team wellbeing._ The Gammas loved to tease her about worrying too much, but Mark was giving her a run for her money in that department. Still, it was good feedback; the decision to follow or ignore those suggestions was ultimately hers, as was how to address them. Teaching traumatised fourteen year-olds not to care about their own family was a waste of time—and more than a little ethically dubious—but she _could_ help Mark with mindfulness exercises that helped to combat anxiety, even during the heat of battle.

She was in the middle of reviewing 'livi's reports when the starboard door opened. Veta immediately closed the files in case another agent stepped through, something else Osman had been right about; _they're all nosy, every one of them. It's part of the job. It's also your job to make sure people know as little about your team as possible._ That last one went double for Veta; any bit of information someone could get on the Gammas was potentially damning to the entire UNSC—and much more importantly, her team—and she'd kill before she let someone compromise them.

All of that ran through her head the moment the door opened, and she was coiled up on the couch by the time she saw who came through. She quickly relaxed when she realised who it was, though. Ash ducked under the too-low doorframe and rubbed at his eyes, blinking heavily. "Hey, mom," he rasped, sounding like he'd just woken up.

The ragged note in his voice instantly made her worry, enough that she let the mom thing drop for now. "Everything okay?"

He stopped a few feet in front of her, casting about the room as if looking for something. His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "Just a nightmare. Why're you up so late?"

"Same as you." She tucked her tablet in between her leg and the couch arm and patted the cushion beside her. "Sit."

He folded his massive frame into the sofa awkwardly. It reminded her of the rebel fighter action figures she'd had as a kid, trying desperately to shove them into a dollhouse clearly not made for them. But Ash didn't have the righteous, inspiring expression of a plastic revolutionary; he looked dazed and mournful, and the sleepy tossel of his sandy hair made him look incredibly young.

She clenched her fists overtop her legs to keep herself from doing anything overly maternal. Veta took a deep breath and looked at him, folded over and forlorn. "We can talk, if you like."

Ash immediately shook his head, hair bouncing around his temples. Veta stood up and placed her tablet on the coffee table in front of them, moving over to the kitchenette. "How about a drink?" she said over her shoulder, keeping her voice casual.

"Like what?"

"Like—" she opened the cabinet in front of her and frowned at the empty shelves. "Like instant coffee or water," she finished with a sigh. "There's not much else, unless you wanna sneak into the officer's galley with me." She turned and raised a brow at the suggestion.

Ash only gave her another shrug, and then she _really_ started to worry. "Hey," Veta said softly, walking back over to him. Standing, she was slightly taller than him, and the dazed look he gave her through thick lashes made her heart clench. "Tell me what you need."

"I need?"

She nodded. "To feel better. What do you normally do after bad dreams?"

"Dunno, just try to forget it and go back to sleep."

"But you couldn't this time."

He rubbed at his arms as if he was cold. Everything in her screamed to wrap him up in a blanket and let him cry on her shoulder, but she knew they weren't there yet. The last thing she wanted was to spook him further. And besides, the sudden surge of decidedly maternal instincts was freaking her out a little. Anything more complicated than a grumpy toddler usually put her on edge, and she was beginning to wonder if the mom nickname they'd given her was starting to go to her head.

Then what he said to her clicked. "Is it because you've all got separate rooms now?"

Whatever had been restraining Ash released its hold on him, and he practically jumped out of his seat. "I don't know why we need them!" His voice rose, squeaking a little. "Is it part of the training or something? Are we going to be separated all the time now?"

Veta sat down next to him, leaving a cushion of space between them. He glared at her, knuckles white on top of his legs, but he looked more upset than angry. "Sometimes," she admitted. "You might be. But all three of you are on my team because I need you together. I know Spartans work a lot better in groups."

"We do," he insisted, nodding his head. "But I don't like having different rooms. It's too quiet."

"I'll have you guys switched out then. Some of the barracks on the lower decks should be large enough to fit all three of you in there."

His shoulders drooped in relief, but he still looked troubled. "Can't we just, like—move our cots all into one of our rooms?"

She smiled. "Sure, but then you'd be on top of each other. The rooms aren't exactly five star suites."

"Five star?"

Veta waved her hand. "Never mind. We'll get you sorted out tomorrow. For now, though, you can sleep here on the sofa if you like. I'll be here for a while yet."

Ash's mouth twisted up as he considered her offer. Out of the three of them, she'd grown closest to Olivia, but they'd still only known each other for little more than a month. She knew they still had reservations about her—most of all Mark. _That_ was a work in progress, but she'd gotten him to stop glaring at her at least.

Ash, well, she hadn't quite figured him out yet. And seeing him like this, troubled and fidgety, only reinforced how much she still had to learn about all of them.

"Okay," he finally murmured, nodding his head. "I think I'll just maybe sit here for a bit."

"Alright. You can have the couch to yourself—" She grabbed her tablet and stood up. "And I'll move over to the… chair." Veta hesitated when she saw his dejected expression, then slowly sat back down. "...Or I can stay on the couch."

"Sure," he said, swinging his feet up and curling up into a ball at the other end of the sofa. He shoved his arm under his head and closed his eyes, a frown scrunching his brow. The couch could barely support his height without her on it; now all he had was a single cushion, but he somehow pulled himself up tightly enough that he didn't poke her with his feet. She closed her eyes when she realised it was probably a holdover of being taught how to hide in enclosed spaces, and took a deep breath.

Vets grabbed a pillow from the nearby chair and set it on her lap. Somedays, squelching the not-insignificant anti-centralisation sentiment she'd been raised and fed on was more difficult than others, and seeing Ash like this was made her wonder how easy it would be start another rebellion.

She patted the pillow instead. "Ash," she said, making sure to keep her voice hushed and calm. "Come over here."

His head poked up over his lanky shoulder. "What?"

"Lie down here. You can stretch out your legs, and that way I don't have to smell your feet."

She saw a spark of distrust in his eyes. Maybe she'd finally overstepped a boundary. She doubted anyone had ever offered to sit close to them unless they were patching up an injury—or inflicting one. Veta gave him a reassuring smile. "Or not. Whatever's comfortable."

Ash didn't respond and settled back down on his cushion. She breathed a sigh of relief and went back to reading Olivia's report. That was progress, at least, and it made her toy with the idea of opening the personnel files Osman had sent her. Her boss had made it pretty clear that those were about as classified as you could get with ONI, and there were still large sections of them that were completely blacked out, but there was enough in them to tell her the basics. She needed to know her team as well as she knew herself if they were going to be effective, and if the DIs had taught her anything, it was that minimising surprises in the field was a top priority.

But she also doubted that combing through the Gammas' files for all their various triggers and quirks would help build trust with them. She had no idea what would be in those files, but she certainly knew that psychoanalysing someone based on past traumas without their consent was a reliable way of making them distrust and dislike you. She took this job with a promise to herself that she wouldn't become some spook with no concept of personal boundaries and only a vague interpretation of what "greater good" meant. Her Ferrets may never tell her any personal details about themselves, but she had to be okay with that if she wanted a meaningful relationship with them. And she _did_ want that.

And, of course, she had her own collection of skeletons that no one needed to know about. Breaching their trust would make her both a proper ONI agent and a giant hypocrite, and she wasn't sure which one was worse.

So the files remained unopened, and _she_ remained unsure of what was the best course of action.

Veta was so deep in thought that she didn't hear or see Ash move until he was settling onto the pillow laying in her lap. She kept herself from flinching, and made slow, deliberate motions to set down her tablet. "Better?" she asked.

His hair whispered on the pillow as he nodded his head. His legs hung off the other end of the couch, but at least he wasn't curled up into a shell-shocked ball any longer. He was far from relaxed, though; she could see lines of tension stringing his lanky frame tight, with his hands balled into loose fists by his side.

"My mom used to brush my hair when I had nightmares," she mused, looking at his sandy shock of curls on the pillow. He looked up at her at the mention of family, and she smiled at him. "I don't have a brush on me, but your hair could use a good combing."

"Your mom?" he said. "You lived with her while you were a detective?"

"Oh, no," she replied, torn between amusement and sorrow at his confusion. "I had my own place. When I was a kid, I mean. She still sometimes braided it when I went to visit when I got older, though. Always liked to do it."

Ash considered that for a moment. "When was the last time you went to visit?"

"A few years now. She's passed away."

"Oh." He fidgeted, looking awkward. "Sorry."

"It's okay. And you can relax, you know," she added, and he looked at her again. "I won't bite."

"Yeah." He shifted around and settled deeper into the cushions, then closed his eyes. "And um—you can, you know, comb my hair. I don't mind."

She grinned even though he couldn't see it, and ran her fingers through his tousled hair. He tensed up at the contact, and she waited until he relaxed to pass her fingers through again. The furrow between his brows seemed to ease away, and so she turned back to her tablet to finish up the reports. Ash seemed to fall quickly asleep, but she kept her hand on his head, just in case.

She'd managed to cycle through and approve her team's files when she heard Ash clear his throat. His eyes didn't open, but the knot in his forehead returned. "Holly," he said softly, his voice raspy.

"Holly?"

She waited so long for a reply that she thought maybe he'd just said it in his sleep, but then she saw his eyes flick up to the ceiling, and a deep sigh moved through his chest. "Who my nightmare was about," he replied finally.

"Who's Holly?"

"Another Gamma, part of my squad. Or was." His jaw clenched and his chin wobbled, but his eyes stayed dry. "She was my best friend."

Lopis opened her mouth to reply—with anything really, though she didn't know what to say—but Ash spoke again.

"I was in charge of Saber and I couldn't save her. Or Dante."

"When?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "When was this?"

"A year ago, I think. It's a little hard to tell exactly, since—ah," he paused, his mouth twisting, and his voice became stiff and formal. "Actually, that's classified."

She closed her eyes. Maybe she really _did_ need to read their files. Not to psychoanalyse them, but to give her enough information about their record to talk to the Gammas like regular people. Ash wasn't even allowed to discuss the death of loved ones when he wanted to because military secrets took precedence over his emotional well-being. The hand not in his hair clenched over the arm of the couch, and it was an effort to keep from grinding her teeth. Perhaps torture and GSWs wouldn't be the death of her, after all. She'd just die of a stroke induced by moral outrage.

"Inspector?"

Veta looked down at Ash and ran a reassuring hand through his hair. The effect was immediate; the tension that had strung through his shoulders eased again, and she focused on getting the angry beat of her heart to slow down. "Sorry. Got lost in thought. But it wasn't your faul—hey," she said when she saw him grimace. "I mean it, Ash. I do. I've seen you guys fight together, and I don't think for a moment you wouldn't have done everything you could to save your friends."

"I was inexperienced, and it cost people their lives." He sat up suddenly, twisting around to look at her. His brown eyes were flared in anger, and his hair made a small mane around his head.

"You were—my God, you must have only been thirteen," she said, unable to keep the horror out of her voice. " _No one_ is experienced at thirteen, Ash. No one. The people responsible for sending you into battle at that age are the ones you should be blaming."

"They weren't—it didn't happen—" He shook his head violently and cut himself off. "I just—I can't talk about that, okay? But Holly's dead because I couldn't protect her, and I can't get it out of my head."

She found herself glaring back at him, even though he wasn't the one she was furious at. She forced herself to relax and took a deep breath. Lecturing him about war crimes and the ethics of child soldiers was neither needed nor helpful. Veta held out a hand and beckoned him back. "Come lie back down. Come on," she insisted, waving at him.

He sat there shaking for a good minute before he complied. He was still shaking when he pressed his head into the pillow, now lying on his side. She took up the habit of combing through his hair again, not knowing how else to calm him down.

"If you were in Holly's place," she began slowly. "And she was in yours, what would you tell her if she started blaming herself?"

"I'd call her an idiot," he murmured, a pained smile creeping up his face. "And she'd probably throw mud at me."

"So she's probably calling _you_ an idiot right now, wherever she is."

His smile turned into a grin. "Yeah, maybe. She liked the word dummy better, though."

She smiled back at him. "Well, there you go."

Ash let out a shaky breath, staying quiet for a while. Veta continued to play with his hair, and his eyelids lowered like a cat being scratched between the ears. She didn't dwell on thoughts of whether or not anyone had ever given the poor kid a hug, keeping her focus only on Ash.

He closed his eyes at some point and curled up loosely on the sofa so that his feet no longer dangled off the edge. "Thanks, mom," he whispered before drifting off to sleep, and she couldn't find it in herself to chastise him.

* * *

 **AN:** thanks a bunch to emilbees on tumblr for helping me edit this!

The lyrics at the beginning are from Elle King's _Kocaine Karolina._


End file.
